


Robot Wolves

by MechanicalTrash



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, F/M, M/M, robot fight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-09-30 16:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20449760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechanicalTrash/pseuds/MechanicalTrash
Summary: The Hale family decided to host an illegal robot fight tournament with a big cash prize.Scott McCall and his friends could use the money well, and decide to enter with a robot made from scratch.Slowly, but surely, they get dragged into the world of robot fights and the fame that could come with it!Of course, along the way, they make many friends and enemies. They love, hate and everything in between.





	1. Crazy Idea

Beacon Hills was a relatively small city. However, that didn't mean it was a boring city. It came complete with a mafia gang and illegal arms deals and black-market trafficking.

  
If you entered Beacon Hills by day, you wouldn't think much more of it than a peaceful time, nice to raise your children. By night, your outlook on the city would have been much different.

  
The city was basically owned by the Hale's. Not only were they the oldest family living in the city, they were also a mafia family that had more than half of the city's police department kissing their feet.

  
The head of the house, Talia Hale, surprisingly had given all the power and business of the maffia side of the family to her son, Derek. He had slowly started recruiting more young people into their ranks. The others had been too old to his liking, and not ready for the change he would eventually try to bring.

  
Currently, Derek was trying to organize some events that were newer in this part of the country. Namely street racing and robot fights, which were both very illegal in Beacon Hills.

  
Needless the say the elder members of his gang weren't too thrilled about that. After all, they couldn't see how that would be profitable at all. Little did they know that gangs in other states had been making some good money off of these kinds of events.

  
Of course, it would be dangerous since word travels fast in a small city like this, but nearly nothing they did wasn't dangerous. Derek's new recruits were rather excited about the prospect of the robot fights, which are known to be rather exciting and often quite brutal.

  
"Isaac," Derek spoke up, making sure the young man in question gave his boss all his attention. "I want you to go talk to Finnstock about the location."

  
The tall boy with curly dark blond hair nodded, being glad he got stuck with one of the easier jobs this time. He was also the best person to send out for more formal business, considering he is the only one in the 'pack', as they would call it, with some normal fashion sense.

  
He wore black dress pants and dress shoes, a white shirt, black tie and a black leather jacket (just to make sure he didn't look too fancy). It also didn't scream maffia to the rest of the world, contrarily to Derek.

  
"Erica. Boyd. I take it I can trust you two with raising awareness for the first rounds?" Derek asked, addressing two of his other subordinates.

  
The girl, Erica Reyes, frowned. "You want us to draw a crowd to a tournament you don't even have competitors for?"

  
Derek chuckled. He had expected that answer. "Don't worry about that. We will have enough competitors the day of the selection rounds."

  
"How do you plan to do that?" Boyd spoke up. It wasn't like he didn't trust his boss. It was just that it seemed almost impossible to bring together enough people in Beacon Hills (and the cities surrounding it) that had a robot/could build one in time to enter a small ladder competition.

  
Derek grinned at them, clearly having thought about this for a while already. He threw a piece of paper with a mock-up flyer for the tournament. The flyer informed everyone that the winner of the tournament would get to go to the National Championship and a cash price of 500.000 dollars.

  
For that price money, a lot of people would at least be tempted to try their hands at building a fighter robot. Isaac whistled when he read the price money. "For that money, I would consider joining myself." he stated.

  
"I have different plans for the three of you during the tournament. I want this to go with as little police resistance as possible." The three of them signaled that they understood and were dismissed to get started on their tasks.

  
After the room had cleared out a little, Talia approached her son. She may not be leading the pack anymore, but she was still very much involved.

  
"Are you sure about this?" she asked. She, too, was very skeptical about bringing the brutality of robot fights to a city like Beacon Hills. Then again, she often realized this was mostly because of her old fashioned way of thinking. That was the main reason why she had stepped down as the leader of the pack. It was ideas like this that made her want to give the role to Derek, who always came up with fresh and new ideas.

  
"There is no way of predicting how well this will go. But I think this city could use a bit more excitement every once in a while, and something like this is perfect for that!" Derek explained. Talia couldn't help but agree with that. She just hoped everything would run as smoothly as her son anticipated.

  
-

  
Liam stared out the bus window, seeing the big, high tech buildings slowly become more scarce, until the bus arrived in the poorer part of Beacon Hills. No more neon signs and high tech building. No, the wooden cottages that were slowly rotting away had taken the place of all that was exciting and pretty.

  
The people that lived in the middle of the city, in the high tech, expensive-looking buildings, often chose to forget about the outskirts with the rotting wood. To them, that simply wasn't Beacon Hills anymore.

  
Sadly, for the police department that often also wasn't Beacon Hills anymore. To make the contrast between cottage land and the high tech part of the city even bigger, there was a huge junkyard, located in the middle of the outer parts.

  
The teen finally reached his stop, pulled up the bandana around his neck over his mouth to protect him from all the flying sand and got off the bus. Finally, he didn't feel so out of place anymore. The boy really did look the part, living in the poor part of the city.

  
He sported an oversized gray shirt, which he had gotten from Scott, and a loose-fitting sweater he had inherited from Stiles. He was lucky those two grew out of their clothes quite quickly, and could claim them as his own.

  
Kira had pimped some old pants for him, adding some green strap-contraption with writings on, to match what was in style at the moment. His shoes weren't any better, the sole of his boots were glued back on more times than he could care to keep count of.

  
Liam adjusted his backpack a bit, making sure he hadn't lost his lacrosse stick yet, and started walking towards the place he called home. It wasn't much, just another house that was on the verge of falling in on itself (how it was still standing was truly a miracle).

  
"I'm home!" he yelled out, not even sure if anyone was home. It was more a force of habit than anything else. Kira peeped out her head out of the kitchen and smiled at him.

  
"Welcome home. It's just me, for now." she informed him. The teen joined her in the kitchen and helped her with cutting up some vegetables for dinner.

  
"Where is everyone else?" Liam asked. Of course, it wasn't abnormal that the rest was out of the house, but as far as he was aware, none of them had anything to do today.

  
"Stiles got a small freelance job today. Some tech company couldn't find out what was wrong with their servers so went to go fix them. It's some good money for a small job like that." That didn't surprise the teen. Stiles was very intelligent and good at this kinda stuff.

  
Kira started to put all the ingredients they had cut up together to make a curry. Nobody makes curry like Kira does.

  
"Scott was called in by Deaton. He had some time to spare today so he wanted to continue to teach Scott so he can become a vet." Kira explained further. A small smile played around her lips as she talked about Scott.

  
Liam always thought it was adorable how much she liked Scott. The poor girl was also rather terrible at hiding her fondness.

  
"Now, don't you have any homework to do?" Kira asked. Liam's face immediately fell, not too excited about the prospect of that dreaded task. He also knew he couldn't postpone working on it since Kira insisted on making the curry by herself. With a deep, exaggerated sigh, he forced himself to the table and started working on it.

  
-

  
Scott was the first to come home. Deaton got a call and had to leave, cutting their teaching session a bit short. Scott didn't mind because he had just been able to catch the last bus going in the direction of his home. He didn't feel like making the hour-long hike home.

  
Kira was, of course, delighted to see him and barely gave him time to get out a greeting before kissing him. Liam was still surprised she could do that so easily, considering the wet dog smell had assaulted his nose as soon as the older man had entered the house.

  
"Stiles not home yet?" Scott asked as Kira pulled away, who shook her head in response. He sighed at that. His best friend would have to walk all the way back. It's not like Stiles couldn't handle the walk, he's done it before. He only never did it when he was alone and in the dark.

  
You see, Scott and Liam were both pretty muscular in build, and definitely could hold their own in a fight. Stiles, on the other hand, was just some pale skin over bones. The boy had always been a thinker, and not much of a fighter.

  
When the nightlife would spring to life, the more dangerous figures living in Beacon Hills did too. These people were more often than not armed, and liked to toy around with people they consider less than worthy of their presence. People living in the outer parts of the city did qualify for that.

  
Kira rubbed his arm. "Don't worry, Scott. Stiles will be just fine." she said, smiling. It was easy for her to say. She knew how to wield a katana, and kept it on her at all times. He could believe Kira would come out of those parts of the city unharmed. Stiles... well, he was worried about him.

  
-

  
As predicted, it was very late when Stiles came home. To the relief of everyone, he came home unharmed. However, Scott made him promise not to make a habit out of late-night trips to the city.

  
Liam and Kira had already gone to bed. The teen had protested, but eventually had to cave in since he had to get up early for school. Scott, however, refused to seek rest until his best friend came home safe and sound.

  
Stiles didn't bother warming the leftover curry and just ate it cold, very hungry from the long walk back home. Scott decided to tell his friend about his day, while he was still busy stuffing his face with food (and therefore quiet).

  
"It's too bad I can't make any money helping Deaton. But I am very grateful for the chance to learn..." Scott said. Stiles smiled at him, actually kind of proud that Scott was still chasing his dreams.

  
The paler one of the two finally finished eating and put away his plate. "Speaking of money..." he said, dinging into his pocket, finally pulling out a piece of paper.

  
"It's a bit of a crazy idea, but..." Scott took the paper out of his hands. Stiles figured the flyer kind of spoke for itself. After reading the flyer a few times, Scott looked up at his friend with a raised eyebrow.

  
"You're not actually considering this, _are you_?" the disbelief was clearly audible. Where the hell did his friend get the idea they could do something like that. The shrug Stiles gave him told him that, yes, he was actually considering it.

  
"Stiles. We can't do this. For starters, it's highly illegal. And even if it wasn't, where the hell would you get a robot from? An idiot stupid enough to pilot it? Do I have to remind you we can't pay for the tech that goes into those things!" Scott scolded. For a smart guy, Stiles sure had some dumb ideas at times.

  
"We could build a robot!" Scott stared at him blankly when he said that. "The junkyard is full of scraps of tech that the richies decided they couldn't use anymore. There is bound to be some useful stuff in there."

  
Scott wanted to hit himself in the face because his friend was actually making sense. Considering Stiles' intelligence and affinity with technology and mechanics, he wouldn't be too surprised if he could pull off building a robot.

  
He doubted, however, that the robot would hold up against the very expensive, very advanced models the rich people could get their hands on. Scott was busy progressing this conversation, while Stiles still was going on about how good of an idea this could be.

  
After a while of letting his friend ramble, he decided to end the conversation. "Let's drop it for now. It's late, and we both could use our rest."

  
The two friends bid each other goodnight and then went to the sleeping hall. Stiles took his place on the mattress next to Liam's, while Scott joined Kira on the double mattress.

  
-

  
Lydia was bored out of her mind, sitting at the large dinner table in the Hale house. Het mother had dragged her along to her stupid little business dinner. She didn't understand why she was here to begin with. It's not like she had anything to do with her mother's business.

  
The strawberry blonde girl guessed her mother hoped to involve her in the family business sometime soon. However, Lydia had no interest in sales at all. It all just seemed... boring to her. She wanted something more exciting.

  
If it was up to Mrs. Martin, she would try to marry Lydia to one of the richer family's children. More money = more power. And if there was anything Mrs. Martin wanted, it was power.

  
That's not to say that she valued money and power more than she valued her own daughter. She would never force Lydia into a marriage she didn't want to be in. She just wanted her daughter to be happy, and if she could be happy with a rich man, well, that would just be ideal.

  
Talia Hale and Mrs. Martin moved from the dinner table to the coffee table to discuss some more private affairs. Lydia took this chance to wander around the large Hale house. After all, a little curiosity never killed anyone. Besides, the Hale children were too busy bickering with each other to pay her any mind.

  
There wasn't much interesting to see. Just the normal bedrooms (some messier than others) and bathrooms. Lydia was almost disappointed she didn't find anything exciting, after all the rumors she had heard about the Hales.

  
She was about to head back, before anyone could start wondering where she went, when she noticed a piece of paper on a desk. She had assumed this was Derek's room, considering it contained man's clothing.

  
As soon as she saw it, she had picked it up and started reading it. She could barely believe the words she read. A robot fight? So the rumors about the illegal activities the Hales would get involved with weren't so far-fetched after all.

  
Without thinking too much about it, she took out her phone and took a picture of the flyer. Who knows, her mom wasn't home often. Maybe she could go and check it out, just a little.

  
Lydia hurried back to the dinner table, just in time it seemed as her mother had a look of relief when she spotted her. They were probably just about to come look for her.

  
"Are you ready to go, Lydia?" Mrs. Martin asked. The girl nodded and grabbed her bag. The two of them then went over their obligatory good bye's and went home. On the back of her mind, Lydia was already debating whether or not she would go to the robot fight. Even though, she already had kind of made up her mind about it.


	2. Wolf-bot

Stiles still hadn't given up on the idea of building a robot himself. At this point, he didn't really care if Scott would agree on entering the robot fights. No, he wanted to prove to himself that he could build a working robot capable of surviving the fighting pits.

  
Whenever the pale boy didn't get any jobs, he spent the whole day roaming the huge junkyard in search of scraps. He was surprised by how many usable parts he had managed to find.

  
Whenever Liam wasn't busy with school, Stiles somehow managed to convince him to help out. Naturally, the younger boy had no idea what was supposed to go into these robots and just gathered anything that looked somewhat useful.

  
Scott still wasn't aboard with the whole idea, but he didn't stop his best friend. Stiles seemed to be having a lot of fun with his new little project, and it was good for his mechanical skill.

  
The way professional robots were controlled was with a pilot. Said pilot had to wear a suit that was customized to work with their specific robot. The person piloting the robot had to get into a special contraption (again customized to the robot, since different designs require different control), called a controller, that connects to their suit.

  
Whatever movement the pilot makes, the connected limb of the robot makes as well. The most important part was the connection with the brain though. A special transmitter was to be placed on the temple of the pilot, which transmits their consciousness into the robot.

  
It is this connection that allows for very precise movements and strikes. However, this also poses a threat to the person controlling the robot. There have been pilots that have gone into shock due to the inability to realize that they're not the ones getting hurt.

  
It took Stiles about two weeks to figure out the whole psychic connection between the transmitter and the robot. Needless to say, he screamed victory when he managed to move his consciousness into a prototype head for the robot.

  
Scott had hoped Stiles wouldn't accomplish it, mostly because he was afraid that Stiles wouldn't know how to get back from the connection and be stuck in the robot brain. Luckily, though, that didn't happen.

  
From there on, it was mostly deciding on a design for the machine and what limbs of the pilot would correspond with the limbs of the robot. The pale-skinned boy decided to follow the trend of modeling your fighter after an animal, which was popular among professionals. He settled on a wolf.

  
The following three months were filled with him going back and forth between the controller and the robot. He made sure to test the limb and controller every step of the way. Surely, the wireframe of the robot was finished.

  
Kira, Scott and Liam were more than a little impressed when Stiles showed off his creation. It still lacked an outer layer that would make the design actually look like a wolf. Now it just looked like a lot of metal and wires.

  
"I can't believe you actually made this work... Especially in this short of a time!" Liam exclaimed as he inspected the machinery in front of him.

  
Scott nodded in agreement. "It really is impressive!" he exclaimed. He had never been a fan of the idea of robot fights, but what stiles managed to pull off here was certainly amazing.

  
Stiles beamed with pride. "I know right?! I just need to scavenge for some more scrap metal to make a casing around the wires, so it wouldn't be able to get all that damaged in battle... but we could actually enter the robot fights now!" he said enthusiastically.

  
Scott frowned a little. "You're still all set on actually joining the fights aren't you?"

  
"Of course! My creation might not be the prettiest, but I am sure it'll hold up against the rest of them! Besides, it's 500.000 dollars, it's at least worth a try, if nothing else." Stiles seemed a bit hurt that Scott was doubting him.

  
The McCall boy realized there was nothing he could say or do that could convince his best friend not to go for it, so he decided to no longer argue about it. If Stiles wanted to enter, he was going to.

-

  
Groaning, he awoke from his sleep. Sleeping in a shitty car wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world. Theo Raeken quickly opened his door and stumbled out of said car, so he could stretch his limbs.

  
In the distance, he could also spot a patrol car heading his way. Another groan escaped his lips. How did they find him already? Did he seriously have to find another spot to park his car so he could sleep.

  
The outskirts of Beacon Hills weren't that big, there were only so many places he could station himself at, before it became to easy for the Beacon Hills Police Department to find him. He never seemed to be able to catch a break.

  
"Raeken, seriously? Why don't you just get a job and buy yourself a house. Then you wouldn't have this problem anymore." the deputy in the patrol car spoke.

  
Gee, what a great idea! Never could Theo ever have come up with that idea himself. Seriously, it wasn't like he was living in this situation voluntarily! There was no need for the deputy to be such an ass about it.

  
After the usual lecture, the deputy left. Theo got back in his car and moved to a different location. He dared to enter the richer part of town, not intending to spend the next night anywhere near there. He didn't feel like seeing more of the nightlife up close.

  
The young man only wanted to take a walk and clear his head a bit. This time he wanted to do it in a place that didn't smell like dirt and waste.

  
While walking, he was hit in the face with a piece of paper that had been carried by the wind. With another annoyed sigh, he took away the paper obstructing his vision. Seriously, could this day get any crappier?

  
Then, the brightly colored ink on the flyer he was now holding in his hands caught his attention. His day might not be entirely crappy after all, since this might seem to be the solution to all his problems.

  
-

  
Kira helped Stiles out with the casing of the wolf robot. Stiles was very talented when it came to the technical work that had to happen to the machinery, but the cosmetic stuff wasn't really his forte.

  
He had sought out the help of Kira, since she was a woman and he assumed she would have a better eye for this kind of stuff. He couldn't have been more wrong.

  
The casing was very simplistic and just barely resembled the canine animal. Luckily, you could still it was supposed to be a wolf, and not a mountain lion or something. Stilinski decided it was well enough. As long as the casing didn't restrict the movements.

  
"So, what now?" Kira asked Stiles, as she stepped back, looking at their now finished work.

  
"Well, there are only two weeks left until the fights start, so I am going to start practicing. I know how everything works, since I built it, but that doesn't mean piloting this thing will come naturally to me." Stiles explained.

  
Professionals usually take months of training to get familiar with putting their consciousness in a robot. It was no easy task and very disorienting, since it's not the same as just taking a walk down the street.

  
Without further ado, Stiles set up his controller and put the robot in a starting position. He then got changed in the pilot suit he had fashioned by gluing fabric (no way he knew how to sew, nor could he sit still long enough to decently put it together) and transmitters together.

  
Scott and Liam joined Kira outside to watch the test run that was about to happen. It's not because the first wasn't excited about the whole thing, that he wasn't curious about how this was going to go.

  
Stiles climbed into his controller, connecting his hands and geet with the paws, elbows and knees with the leg joints and shoulders and hips with the upper joints of the legs. Basically, he was on his hands and feet inside the controller, but thanks to the way it was constructed, it wasn't too uncomfortable.

  
Once he was all connected, he had Kira initiate the psychic link, since that was something he was unable to do by himself. His consciousness got transferred to the wolf-bot successfully, so he started making small movements to ensure all connections were correct.

  
Scott cheered when he saw the wolf move, walking small circles across their small yard. However, the joy was short-lived when the wolf froze and his best friend fell out of the controller.

  
He rushed over to help his friend, who was laying on the grass, breathing heavily and coughing. Kira and Liam were by the boy's side quickly as well. Stiles interrupted his coughing only to puke up his lunch.

  
After that, he quickly caught his breath and, with the help of Scott, got up and shakily walked back inside.

  
"I have no idea what went wrong there..." Stiles muttered, looking rather defeated. Everything had gone so perfectly up until then, so what went wrong?

  
-

  
Isaac had no trouble whatsoever convincing Bobby Finnstock for the venue. The latter would allow Derek to use the lacrosse stadium's underground for the fights. There was a big arena under the stadium, which used to be utilized for cage fights. It was literally the perfect place for their tournament.

  
From what the dirty blond boy had heard on the streets, Erica and Boyd had managed to raise quite some interest in the event, just as Derek wanted. Not that he was surprised, something this exciting rarely took place in this shitty city.

  
The young Lahey entered the Hale house and headed to Derek's office immediately. Said man was sitting behind his desk, as per usual, entirely focussed on the work in front of him. The gang leader didn't even hear his subordinate enter.

  
"Finnstock okay-ed the location. Preparations for the event are starting as we speak." Isaac informed his boss, who gave an approving grunt. "Anything else you need me to do, Der?"

  
Derek didn't like that nickname, which is exactly why Isaac chose to use it. He liked to be a pain in the ass from time to time. Well, most of the time.

  
Derek shook his head and lifted his hand, motioning for his subordinate to leave. He was too focussed on his work to even use words to excuse the young man in front of him.

  
-

  
After days of slaving over the problem the robot was giving him, Stiles finally found out why his body had such an extreme reaction to the psychic connection.

  
Stiles was the first to admit that he was frail. Basically pale skin over bones, not much muscle nor fat to be found. And exactly that was the problem. His body wasn't fit enough to handle the strength piloting a bot required.

  
However, there was a certain someone in the house who had the perfect physique to do exactly that. Of course, that happened to be the person that was least excited about the whole thing.

  
"No way, I am not getting in that thing!" Scott exclaimed, walking to the bus stop. He was headed back to Deaton's office, for some extra classes.

  
"Come on, Scott! You have the perfect body for this!" Stiles whined, following his friend closely. However, the other didn't seem like he was about to change his mind, so Stiles decided to change tactics.

  
"Fine, then I'll ask Liam to do it! He's also fit, and I am sure he's mentally strong enough to handle the psychic link too!" Scott froze. He didn't like the idea of getting in the bot. He liked the idea of Liam doing it even less.

  
Scott sighed, knowing his best friend wasn't going to just give up about this. He also knew that said boy was perfectly capable of actually trying to make Liam try it. There was just no other way than to give in.

  
"Alright, I will give the robot a spin tomorrow. But you have to promise me you'll give up on this if I am not compatible as well." Those words almost made the Stilinski boy dance from euphoria.

"I promise. You won't regret this!" Stiles quickly shouted at his best friend as he got on the bus.


	3. Final Preparations

The tournament was getting really close, which meant the Hale gang had its hands full with getting everything ready in time. None of Derek’s subordinates dared to approach their leader. It was clear he had a lot on his mind right now and it would be a dumb idea to get in his way now.

The only fearless person seemed to be none other than Erica Reyes. She was the only one that could be even moodier than Derek. The older male sometimes seemed to even fear the girl.

Erica was always barking back when Derek was being unreasonable. Well, the Hale boy could often be unreasonable, but it was always a lot worse if he was stressed out from throwing himself on his work.

Sometimes, Boyd, Erica and Isaac wondered if it wouldn’t do Derek some good to find himself a partner. You know, get rid of some of that… frustration. Neither of them ever dared to breach the subject with him though.

“Seriously, Der. You need to relax. Everything is being taken care off. There is no point in stressing out about it.” Erica said. She was clearly getting fed up with her boss’ moody behavior.

Knowing the blonde in front of him, she wouldn’t leave him alone until he agreed to take a break. He sighed in defeat. “I know that, Erica. But it’s important this goes well. We invested a lot of money in this event, in the hopes it could earn us even more. My mother trusted me when she made me the leader of the Hale gang, and I can’t disappoint her.”

“We know. And you won’t! The tournament is the talk of the town. It will be a huge success!” Erica exclaimed, Isaac and Boyd nodding in agreement. Really, Derek was worrying for nothing.

“And on the night itself, you don’t have anything to worry about either.” Isaac continued. “We will be taking care of everything. You just sit back and enjoy and socialize, just like you’re supposed to.”

And they were right. They always were. Derek was truly grateful for the three teens that were standing before him in his office. They kept him sane, and human. If they weren’t there, he would probably drown himself in his work until he suffocated.

Derek finally got up from his desk and left the office. Erica let out a relieved sigh and then went off to spend some time with Boyd.

Isaac took this as the ideal moment to take a nap. After all, Derek had him running errands for the past few weeks and he hadn’t had much time to himself anymore.

-

As expected, Scott’s tests with the robot went way smoother than when Stiles did it. It, of course, took Scott a while to get used to. After all, we didn’t learn to walk in one day either.

The most important thing was that the connection was stable, and Scott’s body was much more equipped to control the robot. In Stiles’ eyes, this was a big success.

“That was awesome!” The pale boy exclaimed once Scott broke off the connection and got out of the controller. Liam nodded excitedly, agreeing with the other’s statement.

Kira let go of a breath she hadn’t realized that she was holding beside the other spectators. After she had seen what the connection had done to Stiles, she was wary to let Scott try it as well. Thankfully, Scott didn’t have any complications with this.

Stiles could barely contain his energy and excitement. “This is so perfect! I am sure, Scotty, with some practice you could completely hammer the competition!” he rambled.

“Woah woah woah, slow it down there. This was _one_ successful test run. This doesn’t mean I could ever be good enough at piloting this thing, let alone be able to fight other people that may actually be more experienced than I am.” Scott said. He was trying to stay realistic here. They barely had any time left to get this whole piloting thing perfectly.

No negativity was about to get in the way of one Stiles Stilinski, though. “Come on Scotty, don’t be so down! I will be there to guide you through it! I spent the last months studying everything there is to know about robot fights, and I know this baby inside and out!” He patted the robot. “What could go wrong?”

So much could go wrong. They were all thinking it. But they didn’t have the heart to try and bring Stiles down from his high. After all, they had to admit he really did his homework and delivered some impressive work.

-

Lydia was sitting in her room, her mother in her office attending to some business that didn’t interest the strawberry blonde teen at all. She was staring at the flyer she had snatched from the Hale residence. She was sure she wanted to go see this tournament. After all, it’s a nice change of pace of the stuff she had to deal with on a daily basis.

So it was settled, she was going. But she also realized that it would be a bad idea for her to go alone. After all, robot fights didn’t tend to draw the nicest of crowds. It wasn’t like she was defenseless or anything, but she would feel more comfortable with someone by her side.

Of course, Lydia knew exactly who to ask. She grabbed her phone and dialed the number. “Jordan? Lydia here! I need to ask you a favor…”

Was asking a police deputy to accompany her to an illegally organized event the best of ideas? Certainly not. But Lydia wouldn’t ask him for help if she didn’t trust him with her life. He would keep his mouth shut to the sheriff, she was sure of it.

-

Theo had managed to gather a little bit of a crew for himself. They would be helping him during the tournament. Of course, he had promised them part of the price money. Whether or not he was going to keep that promise remained to be seen of course.

At first, Theo had asked one of the smarter people in his crew to try and build a robot, but that didn’t work out quite so well. And with that he meant it was absolute garbage.

The only reason Theo would obtain a robot equipped and durable enough for a robot fight, was to steal one. God knows he couldn’t afford to buy one.

Luckily, the members of his crew weren’t shy of some illegal activities. In fact, most of them had experiences in said kind of activities, and had a set of skill that would make this mission successful.

The whole theft did require some planning, he had Corey, one of the youngsters he had recruited, track shipments of tech passing through Beacon Hills. Every now and then, a fighter robot would pass through, it wasn’t illegal in some other cities after all.

They selected the one that would stand a good chance in the ring, but wasn’t so crazy unique it would be easy to find out that it was a stolen model.

The group didn’t run into much trouble while stealing the robot. It was mostly thanks to the driver of the transport vehicle being an absolute moron.

They had stayed close to the vehicle driving motorcycles. Once they reached an empty street, they had Tracy jump over from the motorcycle to the truck, and pull out the pin connecting the load platform carrying the robot.

The driver never even noticed that he lost the robot until he was a few hours outside of Beacon Hills. Theo and his little group attacked the robot to Theo’s car and drove it to an abandoned warehouse they had been occupying.

Corey worked on removing the tracker in the robot while Tracy looked over some cosmetic changes. If the robot fit Theo’s style a bit more, then it would be less obvious that this bot was in fact stolen.

After that, they got Theo in the controller and got to work. He needed to do a lot of getting used to in a very short amount of time. Lucky for him, he was physically fit, so his body could definitely take the strain of the connection and the movements, but he did feel mentally exhausted whenever he left the control pod.

He had a lot of work to do, and he knew it. However, with eyes on the prize he kept going.

-

Beacon Hills’ hotels got a lot of bookings when the tournament was approaching. Lots of people from surrounding towns and even some from other states filed into the city, hoping to catch a glimpse at possible new talent in the robot fighting scene. Needless to say talent scouts that were familiar with the whole robot fighting milieu were arriving as well.

Some more experienced pilots decided to travel to Beacon Hills as well. As they saw it, this could be an easy win since they guessed resident pilots were all fairly new and would be easy to stomp into the ground.

Whatever the outcome of this tournament would be, it would certainly be an interesting one.


	4. D-Day

Today was the day. The tournament finally began. Stiles had barely slept at all and was already bouncing around the house around 3 in the morning. He had checked over the robot a hundred times, making sure the wiring was good and the shell would hold up.

He knew his work was good, his housemates knew his work was good. Everyone knew his work was good. Yet, he decided to stress over it anyway.

When Scott woke up, he forced the boy to go back to bed. Needless to say, Stiles protested by listing off all the things he still had to get done.

“Stiles, we all went over it three times last night. We got everything ready. Now you go take a nap because I am not putting you in charge of my life when you only had two hours of sleep.” Scott said with a voice that oozed authority.

The pale boy knew his best friend was right and headed to his bed. He surprisingly passed out rather quickly.

Kira joined her boyfriend downstairs shortly after Stiles had come back upstairs. “So, how are you feeling about today?” she asked as she made herself a cup of coffee.

Scott sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know Kira, I don’t know. I guess we’ll see how the selection rounds go… I am mostly doing this to make Stiles happy. He put a lot of time and effort into the wolf-bot.”

She smiled at that. Scott would do anything to make his hyper-active friend smile, and Kira honestly thought that was the sweetest thing. It was obvious he hadn’t been too excited about the whole robot thing, but he still went for it, just because Stiles wanted to.

“Who knows,” she said. “Best case scenario, this goes really well and you might actually have a chance to go for the price.” Scott smiles at her. He loved that she could always see the positive, even in the most dire of situations.

-

As it turned out, Stiles had been really tired because Liam had ended up having to drag his ass out of bed, so they wouldn’t be late for the check-in.

They loaded the wolf-bot into the van they borrowed from Dr. Deaton. It was just big enough to fit the controller and the Robot in safely. Stiles insisted on being the one to transport his baby, and nobody was about to argue.

Liam took the passenger seat in the van while Scott and Kira sat in the back with the robot. The latter kept rubbing circles on her boyfriend’s hand soothingly. It was becoming clear that the young male was getting nervous. After all, very rarely did pilots come out of these fights unharmed.

The group soon arrived at the stadium. Stiles parked the car and went to enter themselves as contestants. After that, they were allowed to continue driving to the backstage, where other contestants were preparing.

The four of them immediately got to work and unloaded their wolf-bot. Looking around, theirs was not as good looking, but Stiles was still positive they stood a good chance.

A young man with curly, dirty blond hair showed up with a pretty young girl “Alright, you guys are entering the wolf-bot right? And the pilot is…” The boy looks at his notes. “Scott McCall?”

Scott stepped forward. “That would be me.” he stated. The boy nodded. “Who is your techie?” That’s when Stiles scrambled forward.

“That would be me!” Stiles said, a bit too excited. The dirty blond wasn’t impressed, at all. “This is Cora Hale, she will inspect your robot and control pod, to make sure everything in there is legal.” And with those words, the boy left.

The girl had a much more friendly aura and walked over to Stiles. “Don’t mind him, Isaac doesn’t like interacting with people all that much. Now, show me the bot.” she said energetically.

Stiles felt like he could get along with this girl and took her over to the wolf-bot. The Hale girl inspected the bot carefully, and the fact that it was built out of scrap metal didn’t really seem to bother her.

“Sorry it’s a bit mangled looking.” Stiles said. He was proud of what he made, but it was hard not to feel like he had to apologize after seeing the other bots. Especially since Cora was part of the well known Hale family.

Cora smiled kindly at him. “I can tell it’s well made, who cares if the looks aren’t the prettiest? The insides are way more important. Seems like there are no illegal parts in this baby, so you guys are good to go.”

Stiles sighed in relief. “Thank you very much, Miss Hale.” The girl then left, most likely to go check on the next contestant

-

Theo had to admit he was a bit nervous when the Hale girl game to check on his robot. Lucky for him though, either they did a good job changing up the robot, or they never got a list of stolen/missing robots, because they passed the check no problem.

The young male took the time to look around at the competition. That’s when his eyes landed on a mangled looking wolf-bot. It looked like they just picked it off the junkyard.

“Well… we know who won’t be making it through the selection rounds.” Donovan said when his eyes had also landed on the wolf-bot. It surely looked like a piece of trash after next to their newly pimped chimera-bot.

This robot was completely modeled after the classic depiction of a chimera in history. The robot had the head and paws of a lion at the front, goat legs at the back, as well as a goat head sticking out on it’s back, and its tail was a snake. It also had some bat-like wings protruding from its body. The three heads made it hard to control, but Theo was confident he could do it.

It was by no means the most beautiful design, but it at least looked elegantly finished. The wolf-bot, on the other hand, looked like it was about to fall apart.

“I wouldn’t underestimate them just yet.” Corey piped up. “It looks like they built it themselves, so they know the controls perfectly, unlike us.”

Donovan rolled his eyes. “Please, that thing won’t last ten minutes in that ring.” Corey knew there was no use in arguing about this and kept his mouth shut, turning back to helping Tracey get the robot to its starting spot.

-

Entering the underground arena of the stadium, Lydia instinctively gripped her friend’s hand. Jordan smiled at her and gave her hand a soothing squeeze. “We can leave, if you want to.” he said, knowing this wasn’t exactly Lydia’s scene.

However, the strawberry blonde refused. “No, I want to see this. Nothing ever happens in this godforsaken city. She picked out a seat and sat down, Jordan soon taking his place next to her. From where they sat, they had a great view of the large arena.

Slowly but surely, more people filed into the arena and took their spots. A lot of people in Beacon Hills seemed to be interested in this robot battle. Who knew there was a market for this here. Seemed like Derek Hale knew what he was doing after all.

Speaking of the devil, Lydia spotted said gang leader enter the arena and heading to a bit of an elevated spot, his exclusive seats. Lydia made sure to hide her and Jordan’s faces discreetly, as to not draw any unnecessary attention to themselves.

It’s not like Derek would care if she was here or not, but bringing in a deputy might grind his gears a bit. Besides, she didn’t need her presence here slipping up to her mother.

-

Derek took his place, ready to see what would come from this tournament. Surprisingly enough, the young Hale had never seen a robot battle before. Luckily, he had his trusty three running around the place, making sure everything is in order.

Some of his stress melted away any time he saw one of them working. It reassured him that they knew what they were doing.

Finally, when the doors closed and the audience took their place, the voice of the announcer he hired was audible through the whole arena.

The girl was standing on a metal platform in the middle of the arena that was hanging from the ceiling. She was very colorful and oozed personality, perfect for events like this.

“Ladies and gentlemen! How are we feeling? Are we excited?” she spoke, the audience not holding back on responding. The atmosphere was right, and Derek was pleased with that.

“Operators, take your places and pilots, climb in your controllers. We will be starting shortly.”

Derek let his eyes slide over the operators, who were visible on their platforms for the audience to see. Most of them were rather strong-looking men. After all, they usually look after the robots and mechanics behind them, which often included heavy metal parts.

That’s why the two younger operators stood out like a sore thumb between the others. They both seemed to be rather skinny and pale looking. Derek felt like if he would give them a push, they would snap in two.

One of them stood out even more, once you noticed his control panel. It almost looked duct-taped together with all the scrap metal that it was made of. Derek immediately decided he didn’t even care what pilot or bot belonged with him. Most likely an amateur that didn’t even take the competition seriously.

“Rules are simple. This is a free for all. The first 8 robots to be put out of commission, either by loss of connection or breaking of parts, are out. The remaining 8 will move on to a bracket competition.” the announcer spoke again.

-

When the announcer called or the operators and pilots to take their places, Stiles went to one of the raised platforms. There were 8 in total so he had to share it with one other operator since there were 16 contestants.

From this spot, he could see the whole arena clearly, which was important if he were to guide his pilot through these battles successfully. “Scotty, can you hear me?” he asked, checking his headset.

“Loud and clear, Stiles. I am ready to start the connection.” Scott replied. Stiles twisted some buttons on his control panel and initiated the link. Soon enough the message that the connection was successful and stable.

Both Stiles and Scott took a deep breath. The realization that they were really doing this dawned on them, and their hearts were beating wildly in their chests.

-

Kira and Liam were backstage, watching on a big screen along with the crews of the other contestants. They were both holding their breath in anticipation for the battle to begin. They so dearly hoped that Scott would come out unharmed.

-

“Corey, you hear me?” Theo spoke to his operator. He was already sitting in his control pod and was getting a bit impatient with how long it took for his crew member to start speaking.

“Loud and clear Theo, I will be initiating the link now.” he said, his voice very shaky. It was clear he was nervous. It probably didn’t help that he was terrified of Theo. He knew it would end badly for him if he screwed up here.

-

“Alright everyone, we just got confirmation that all our pilots are ready to go.” the girl’s voice announced to the arena. Derek leaned forward in anticipation. Everything had gone well up until then, now all there was to do was enjoy the show.

“Be prepared for the thrill that is a free for all robot fight! Pilots! On your marks!” The sounds of robots moving, getting ready for the battle that was to come, echoed throughout the whole arena.

“FIGHT!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like the story so far!  
Please recommend a better title!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!  
Suggestions for a title are always welcome!


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